Modelling
Gotham

Hello, my name is Marco Zgraggen.
I am 27 years old and I live in Switzerland.

On this page, I give you a short overview of my project to model Manhattan.

Some notes about my modelling philosophy:

• All of Manhattan below Central Park South will be captured.
• The model will contain every building of the captured area, as far as possible.
• This leads to the fact that not every building is reconstructed as a unique artwork with every little detail. For me, this would simply impossible because I don’t live in Manhattan.
• Taller buildings will be modelled in more detail because there is usually more information available about them.
• Lower buildings, such as 5-stories residential structures, are represented as simple boxes.
• The buildings are modelled as accurate as possible, but please don’t try to compare my model with commercial Manhattan 3D Models. I simply don’t have the equipment and manpower to create a model with e.g. 1-meter accuracy. Generally, the buildings represent the idea of how the building looks in reality, but don’t count the number of floors on the different terraces – it will simply be wrong.

Here is the current state of my work. It is updated every day but I don’t update this page every day, so it might not be the very latest state.  To contact me or to inquire about the model, please first read Manhattan City Model.pdf.

2005.10.09	Added a document about the city model, which interested people should read.
2005.07.04	I finally finished with Downtown.  At the moment, I am optimizing several buildings in the midtown area which were Built in the beginning with a lack of knowledge on 3d modelling.  Now that I have some more experience especially in vertex-level modelling, And have several additional data sources, I recreate them. Then I will add the bridge. One I did already, the others will follow. And then, I have 2 major expansion issues: texturing the model, And extend the model towards uptown and maybe even Harlem.
2005.03.07	Here is a screenshot of the current state of the Manhattan Model.
2004.12.24	Most of the East Village and Chelsea now done.
2004.11.29	Starting to spread into Greenwich Village.
2004.11.12	I have started to manage my own homepage. It includes an image of my project with buildings labeled.
2004.10.22	Screenshot of the newest state.
2004.10.18	Screenshots of the newest state.
2004.10.05	Another screenshot, which shows a bit more of the model.
2004.10.03	Another small impression of my model. It gives an idea of the level of detail.
2004.10.02	A screenshot of the current development state.
2004.09.29	Here is a screenshot of the newest state of yesterday evening, including the trump world tower:
	An inner urban shot:
2004.09.26	Modelled so far:
	Overview and a closer look:
	An aerial view of the Rockefeller Center. Notice the St. Patrick's Cathedral (on the right) with the Olympic Tower, and the famous GE Building which is the tallest building of the center and its centerpiece (this area is still under construction!):
	Even small structures are modelled. Note the church of the incarnation (Madison Avenue) in the screenshot:
	Another Church (in the top middle of the screenshot), the "Our Saviour" at Park Avenue near Grand Central :
	Using VRML, realtime 3D is possible with the model. Here you see a virtual view from the virtual Empire State Building towards the virtual North of a virtual Manhattan’s virtual Fifth Avenue … Realtime 3D Screenshot:
2004.09.23	A new screenshot.
2004.08.09	Here is a screenshot of the latest state.